Costa Rica, 2004

We were staying at a little boutique lodge, with just a few individual cabins scattered around hillsides along the western slope of La Cordillera de Tilarán, near the Monte Verde Cloud Forest. The couple who built, owned, and ran the lodge had a 15 year old home-schooled son, who had more practical knowledge about the world than many adults I know. He and a friend arranged for horses to take us on a ride through the mountains and forest, and to a beautiful waterfall where we could swim, and have a picnic.

It was a hot day, and the swim felt good, invigorating, but apparently Barbara’s horse felt left out of the cooling off option. As we were riding back out of the wildness, he simply stepped off the trail, into a deeper pool, and stopped, at which point all we could do was wait for him to be ready to move on.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index